Indiana winning more jobs than in 2008

CONNERSVILLE/FORT WAYNE, IND. (WANE) - Roughly 1,300 jobs are coming to Indiana; more specifically, the city of Connersville. That’s about two hours south of Fort Wayne in east central Indiana. As NewsChannel 15 uncovered, the jobs announcement could be the beginning of brighter days for the entire state.

“There are a few thousand people here in Connersville Indiana that just declared the official turnaround of the United States of America,” said Carbon Motors CEO William Santana Li. Carbon Motors is relocating to Connersville.

It's the turnaround Connersville has been begging for. The city of 15,000 was once a booming manufacturing town. However, it has lost about 9,000 industrial jobs over the last 20 years. At one point, the city was even called “Little Detroit” because many cars and auto parts were manufactured in that city.

Connersville has been hurting since one of that area's largest employers, Visteon (once a division of Ford ) closed back in 2007.

Since then the sprawling plant has sat empty and the unemployment rate has climbed to 16%. After much campaigning by Connersville and state officials, the announcement came Wednesday morning that Carbon Motors will fill that Visteon void by bringing nearly 1,300 jobs to that plant.

“I've known it for several days, but when you said it, I still had tears in my eyes,” said Connersville Mayor Leonard Urban.

Carbon Motors makes high-tech police cars and cruisers and is relocating from Georgia. Connersville beat out nearly half-a-dozen cities to land those jobs, and that's just part of an overall strategy for the state of Indiana right now.

“We have now gone past 2008 in terms of the number of new jobs brought into the state. It won't be noticed for awhile until they're all here and the hemorrhage [of jobs] comes to a stop,” said Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels.

Now more than ever, Indiana may have more tools to lure companies from near-bankrupt states, like California or New York. The reason largely lies in Indiana's recently-approved and balanced state budget.

“We watch other states raising taxes and shut down vital services, and we go to businesses and say that's not happening here. We're taking precautions so it doesn't happen so [you can come to Indiana with peace of mind]” the Governor said.

And they have, like a high-tech Silicon Valley data company that'll relocate to Indianapolis. The state's working to bring home even more jobs.

“We can show you a long list of companies that have been forced to consolidate and their operations, and we've gone to those companies and said, if that's your situation, why not consolidate into Indiana,” Governor Daniels said.

Officials say you can count on job announcements later this year for Northeast Indiana. Meanwhile the state reports that more than 3,400 Hoosier jobs have been announced so far this year.